Keeper of the King's Secrets (2 page)

Upon this, one has to remark that men ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge.

—Niccolò Machiavelli
, The Prince,
chapter 4 (translated by W. K. Marriott)

U
pper Thames Street was crowded as Londoners took advantage of the first warm day of the new year. Susanna cradled her purchases like a baby in front of her, keeping a good hold on the satchel’s strap. Gold leaf required delicate handling.

The street was full of shops run by merchants from the Netherlands, France, and Italy, and she alternated between watching her footing in the March mud and searching the display of wares set out to attract the eye for lapis lazuli. She hadn’t been able to get enough of it earlier.

Perhaps because she was looking for blue, she noticed the man in the deep blue cloak stepping out of a jeweller’s shop. Something in the turn of his head, the jut of his jaw, was familiar, and she moved closer to get a better look.

“Master Jens?” she called in English; then she called his name again in her native Flemish.

He checked his step, turned, and seemed to jerk back at the sight of her—but that could not be right. He must have tripped on something or slipped in the mud.

Susanna waved as best she could without loosening her hold on her bag.

He turned away, unseeing. Only she could have sworn he had seen her. It must be that he didn’t know she was living in London now, and thought his eyes were playing tricks on him.

“Master Jens, it’s Susanna Horenbout!” Her call cut through the street noise, and she ran after him.

As he turned into a narrow alleyway her hand grasped his cloak, and he surprised her with a sharp cry of fear.

“Master Jens.” She smiled at him as he turned; he must have thought her some brigand. “I did not mean to startle you. I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw you come out of that jeweller’s shop. It makes my heart glad to see a familiar face.”

“Susanna.” He tried to smile back, but it was a sick thing, forced at the corners and white-edged.

“Are you ill?” Susanna frowned. Her hand came up to feel his forehead, then stopped in a strange salute as he cringed back from her into deep shadow.

She noticed now that the alley was barely more than a rank passageway, and what little sunlight managed to angle itself into the narrow space stopped high on the left-hand wall.

“Master Jens, what is wrong?” She wanted to back out into
the light and bustle of the street, but family ties and respect forced her to take another step toward her father’s friend.

He drew back farther into the gloom. “Nothing, nothing. Just a touch of travel fever.”

His voice sounded more like his own, this time, and Susanna relaxed. “If you come home with me, I’ll call our local healer to see to you. I can vouch for her knowledge. We can dine and exchange news.”

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible.” He seemed to fold in on himself, sinking to the ground, and Susanna bridged the distance between them in two strides, then knelt beside him.

She felt his forehead, which was cool and dry. She tried to see his face in the shadows, shifting so she didn’t block all the light.

His eyes shocked her, filled with the terror and rage of a trapped animal.

She fell back with a cry as his arm swung up and over. She scrambled back and heard a crunch as whatever was in his hand became buried in the earthen alleyway floor.

He pulled it out, lifted it up again, and she saw it was a chisel, dark-edged and finely honed. His diamond-cleaving chisel.

She struggled to find her feet, hopelessly entangled in her gown. He moved toward her on his knees, chisel raised, like some mad cleric sacrificing to a vengeful god.

He wanted her dead.

Susanna thought of Parker, her betrothed’s face coming to her clear and sharp, and she flicked her arm. The knife he’d
given her dropped into her palm and then Jens was on her, swinging wildly.

There was a sharp sting where her neck met her shoulder, and she lunged forward. Felt the brief resistance, then the give as her blade found its mark.

Jens reared back, her blood dripping from his weapon, her knife embedded high on his right side, just below his shoulder.

He stared down at the blade, buried hilt-deep, his breath coming in short, sharp gasps. He fumbled for the wall, pulled himself up. Once he was standing, he looked down on her with eyes glazed over in shock.

His fingers shook as he tried to push his chisel into the leather pouch on his belt. He couldn’t make it go in, and dropped it to the ground, stumbling past her, the blade still protruding, a strange keening coming from his throat, his movements jerky and uncoordinated as he staggered away.

Susanna realized her own breathing was too shallow, and she forced herself to hold her breath, to let it out slowly, then draw in a deep gulp of air.

The chisel lay in front of her, bloodstained, mud-stained. Sharp enough to cut diamonds. She shuddered and fought down the sob that rose in her throat. Her hand closed over it and she slipped it into her pocket.

She got slowly, stiffly, to her feet and picked up her satchel. She could feel the trickle of blood running into the groove of her collarbone and then down between her breasts.

Master Jens was one of her father’s best friends. He’d stayed
at their home many times, had bounced her on his knee when she was small.

An icy ball of fear and confusion sat in her stomach, and she breathed deep again to keep herself from heaving her breakfast onto the ground.

Then she limped out of the alleyway, finally feeling the scrapes on her knees.

She needed to get home.

A
nyone watching Dr. Pettigrew wind his way through the stalls on London Bridge would see a man of wealth going about his business. Parker saw nothing but a stone-cold killer.

He followed Pettigrew stealthily, the shock of spotting the doctor shuddering through him. That Pettigrew had come to London, within half a mile of Parker’s house, set a slow fire burning in his gut.

He ignored the shouts of the market, the pushing crowds, as he kept Pettigrew in sight.

The doctor slowed, glancing at the buildings on the upstream side of the bridge.

A man stood within the doorway of one of the houses, his face in shadow, and Parker saw the moment the two made eye contact. Pettigrew relaxed, hitched the leather bag on his shoulder higher, and stepped into the house.

The door swung shut behind him.

Parker looked for a place to wait. Pettigrew had to come out the way he went in. There were no back doors in the
houses built on either side of London Bridge—unless you were prepared to swim.

Pettigrew worked for the Duke of Norfolk, and anything Norfolk was up to was of interest to Parker. He and the Duke had been forced to come to an uneasy truce a month ago, but Parker didn’t trust the Duke not to renege on the bargain they had struck, or start new trouble.

Someone jostled him, bumping his elbow, and Parker snaked out a hand and grabbed the small boy trying to duck past him.

For a moment the boy’s gaze locked with his own, and Parker saw the cockiness, and the cunning, die in his eyes.

The boy shivered. “I didn’t steal nothing.”

Parker suppressed the urge to hand over a coin at the sight of his pinched face, drawn tight with hunger. When he’d been on the street like this, he’d have taken that kind of gesture as a sign of weakness. “I know.”

The boy stared at Parker’s hand, still gripping his arm. “Well?”

“What do you know about that house?” Parker jerked his head and pulled a coin from his bag.

“Foreigners live there.” The boy pulled himself taller. “Rich ’n’ all.” He eyed the money.

“Where’re they from?” Parker did not loosen his hold.

The boy tried to yank his arm away but gave up when he realized there was no give. “Foreigners is foreigners. I don’t know.”

Parker flicked the coin at him and let him go, and the boy caught it neatly, then dived into the crowd.

Parker gazed thoughtfully at the house. Foreigners.

The last time he’d had dealings with Pettigrew, the doctor was on a ship from Ghent. The ship that had brought Susanna to England. What new plot from the Continent was Norfolk involved in now?

Before he could ponder the question, Pettigrew stepped out of the house. Parker turned to face a stall as the doctor swung left, back the way he’d come.

He could come back later and find out who lived here, so Parker followed Pettigrew. He wanted to make sure Norfolk’s hand was in this. There was a small possibility that this was Pettigrew’s private business.

He slipped into the crowds and walked easily in Pettigrew’s wake.

… a man who wishes to act entirely up to his professions of virtue soon meets with what destroys him among so much that is evil.

—Machiavelli,
The Prince
, chapter 15

M
aggie was the first sign that something was wrong. The healer was coming out of Crooked Lane, and Parker frowned at the sight of her.

She looked up, and pity or concern flashed in her eyes. There could be only one reason for it—only one thing meant anything to him.

He ran toward her.

“She was lucky.” Maggie looked straight at him, one of the few who had the nerve to do so when he felt like this, like an icy storm raged inside him. “Just a scratch really, and her knees aren’t bad. She’d get as much from slipping in this cursed mud.”

He had enough civility in him to lift a hand in salute, but
he could feel it unraveling as he raced for his front door, leaving nothing but the wild core of him exposed.

The door opened before he reached it and Mistress Greene jerked her head toward the study.

“She wouldn’t go to bed, but she’s resting by the fire.”

He gave a nod and moved past her, something easing a little within him. If Susanna was refusing bed, she wasn’t at death’s door.

He stepped into the room and stared at her, curled in her usual chair. His betrothed’s hair was always dressed and under a cap, but now the cap had been removed and the heavy, dark mass was piled almost on top of her head, to keep it away from her neck.

Away from the deep, angry gash in her pale skin.

“Who did this, did you see them?” He held himself back from her, afraid to touch her with the rage burning so hot inside him. His hands were white-knuckled fists.

“I stabbed him.” She drew in a shaky breath, her eyes wide as she looked at him. “With the knife you gave me. It was still stuck in his chest when he ran off.”

He blinked. “Good.”

“Parker, I cannot believe he would do this. I cannot believe it even happened. If this wasn’t here”—she lifted fingers to her neck—“if I didn’t still have the chisel he stabbed me with, I would be trying to convince myself it was a nightmare.”

“You
know
who did this?”

Susanna nodded. “Master Jens of Antwerp. He’s a
diamantaire
,
a diamond cutter. He’s been my father’s friend since they were apprentices.”

Parker fell to his knees beside her, took her hands in his. Whatever he’d thought, whatever he’d expected, this was not it. “Why would he attack you?”

She shook her head. “He pretended not to see me, and ducked into an alley. As if he didn’t want me drawing attention to him.” She stroked her thumbs along the sides of his palms.

“Perhaps he didn’t want to be recognized.” Parker frowned. “He may have been afraid you would write home and mention you had seen him here.”

Susanna laced her fingers with his. “If he were here in secret, my seeing him would have ruined his plans. But what secret is so big, he’d kill the daughter of one of his oldest friends to keep it that way?”

Parker thought back to Pettigrew, to how trouble from the Low Countries seemed to follow in his wake. Parker had followed him straight back to the Duke of Norfolk’s quarters, and knew where to start his inquiries.